There are multiple systems and proposals for the monitoring of event-based systems. If a business process fails to work (e.g., processing of a purchase order is delayed or cancelled), a company can determine, using a monitoring system, if the delay or cancellation is due to a system being down or is due to a breakdown in the actual business process itself. Such a system also allows businesses to know which business processes will be affected if any given system or application fails. One proposal for the monitoring of event-based systems is provided, for example, the Open Management Interface (OMI) by webMethods, Inc., 3930 Pender Drive, Fairfax Va. 22030.
OMI is an open specification, which defines a standards-based (XML/SOAP/HTTP) management interface for an integration platform to manage business processes. Information about the Open Management Interface can be found at Open Management's web site, and is presently at http://www.webmethods.com/OMI_Spec_index/.
However, existing systems suffer from various drawbacks. For example, typical systems enable monitoring only of a predefined set of metrics. This is true, for example, of the Open Management Interface (OMI).
Existing systems provide a hard coded, limited set of visual elements, each of which is typically limited in configuration capabilities.
Existing systems often do not have an easy to use and flexible way of positioning and sizing visual elements. They also typically lack a flexible, easy to use, underlying mechanism for defining business level metrics.
It would therefore be desirable to provide a system and method that addresses one or more of the above issues.